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of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of
marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her
son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man, if he were carefully
brought up."
They were married; careful cultivation ripened the talents which nature
had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed his schoolfellows in every
attainment, and, when older, rivalled his preceptor in wisdom. Phemius
died, leaving him sole heir to his property, and his mother soon followed.
Melesigenes carried on his adopted father's school with great success,
exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants of Smyrna, but also of
the strangers whom the trade carried on there, especially in the
exportation of corn, attracted to that city. Among these visitors, one
Mentes, from Leucadia, the modern Santa Maura, who evinced a knowledge and
intelligence rarely found in those times, persuaded Melesigenes to close
his school, and accompany him on his travels. He promised not only to pay
his expenses, but to furnish him with a further stipend, urging, that,
"While he was yet young, it was fitting that he should see with his own
eyes the countries and cities which might hereafter be the subjects of his
discourses." Melesigenes consented, and set out with his patron,
"
examining all the curiosities of the countries they visited, and
informing himself of everything by interrogating those whom he met." We
may also suppose, that he wrote memoirs of all that he deemed worthy of
preservation(2) Having set sail from Tyrrhenia and Iberia, they reached
Ithaca. Here Melesigenes, who had already suffered in his eyes, became
much worse, and Mentes, who was about to leave for Leucadia, left him to
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